Micah Lowenthal

Micah Lowenthal (Ph.D., 1996)
Senior Program Officer
Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board
National Research Council of the National Academies

As a job-seeking undergrad in physics, I arranged to meet scientists at LBL in their labs, hearing about their work and asking about opportunities to work for them. The third one worked out and gave me useful experience in laboratory work on which I still draw. It also paved my way into graduate school.

After I got my A.B. (1990), I had a very difficult time finding any kind of technical employment-there was a much-publicized glut of physicists; I was not an engineer and I did not know any programming to speak of, so the fall back jobs were not available. I applied for posted jobs on campus and at LBL, at private firms, and even through a temp agency. Finally, I applied for a position teaching elementary school in Richmond, CA, which was desperate for teachers at the time. This was the hardest job I've ever had: surprisingly challenging intellectually (think how you would explain the most basic concepts, things you have taken for granted since early childhood), personally (trying to maintain patience, discipline, and hope in difficult circumstances), and financially. I worked there for less than a year before starting grad school in nuclear engineering, but it made a deep impression on my identity and my perspective.

Near the end of my Ph.D. (1996), I had been offered a postdoc continuing research at Berkeley, but I applied for a brief fellowship through the AAAS (American Association for the Advancement of Science) to do research at the U.S. EPA in Washington, DC. I got the fellowship and continued the work I started at EPA as a very-part-time consultant after I returned to Berkeley for the postdoc. Postdocs only last for a few years. A longer-term research position was created to fulfill my duties after my postdoc eligibility ran out. I applied for and got that job and took on lecturing where the NE department had a gap.

I was (am) not a traditional researcher in that I am more of a generalist than a specialist. I worked and wanted to continue to work across disciplines and areas of specialty. I looked at technical and technical/policy positions at the labs, the State Department, EPA, and academic institutions. I applied for about four faculty positions and was short listed for one of those, at UW Madison. A professor I know mentioned an open position on the staff of the Nuclear Waste Technical Review Board (NWTRB). I applied for the position and went for an interview. The staff director there also passed my information along to the staff director of the Board on Radioactive Waste Management (now the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board) at the National Research Council of the National Academies, who was also looking for a new staffer. I accepted an offer from the National Academies, which fit very well with my cross-disciplinary interests and generalist expertise.

The National Academy of Sciences is an independent body chartered by Congress and President Lincoln during the Civil War to provide scientific and technical advice to the federal government. The National Academies operate under the umbrella of the National Academy of Sciences charter, and include the National Research Council, formed during World War I to be the operational arm of the organization. In my current position, I am professional staff for committees of volunteer experts carrying out studies on nuclear fuel cycles, radioactive waste, environmental cleanup, nuclear and radiological security, and U.S.-Russian cooperation on nuclear nonproliferation. Professors Kastenberg, Olander, Peterson, and Vujic have all been volunteers for the National Academies. My job is to assist the committees in producing a high-quality, peer-reviewed report on time and on budget. The duties range from arranging for information-gathering (meetings and documents), managing the budget, and directing the administrative staff to doing background research, facilitating committee deliberations, and drafting material for the committee's report. I also develop projects (negotiate scope, duration, funding, and other parameters). A gratifying part of the job is in dissemination of the report, including briefing the relevant governmental bodies (U.S. NRC, DOE, Congress, Homeland Security, U.S. EPA, the State Department, the National Security Council, OSTP). I get to work with some of the top scientists in the country and the world on some of the most pressing issues facing the nation.

In my experience, the most important elements of successful job-seeking, aside from simply doing good work, are referrals and recommendations. This is because my greatest success in job searches has always come from face-to-face meetings. You don't often get those without some kind of referral, even if it's just "I'm interested in a career in XX and Prof. YY suggested that I talk to you." Mailing resumes to the Human Resources people at a company has generally been a waste of time, unless it is for a specific advertised job that matches my expertise closely. Better is to identify specific people to contact, particularly through people you know or have worked with, which is why extracurricular work is especially helpful.